Having been part of Ms Fizz’s process during her relatively last-minute, fairly desperate hunt for items she could wear to her 20th high school reunion, I was understandably stoked that she was buoyed by the results. And also thrilled that she and all her former classmates made it through the swamp soirée portion of the weekend without dying from heat exhaustion. So when she called a few weeks ago and gasped, “CLOSET PURGE HELL…4 years overdue…come?” I arrived full of stamina and ruthlessness.
After all, hadn’t I just been through my own closet audit, an audit that saw many a delusion dashed despite my transformation into a fairly brutal, thrice-yearly weeder-outer?
Clearly, she needed a friend who could offer both a shoulder on which to cry and a familiarity with Tim Gunn, Trinny & Susannah, Stacy & Clinton, and Lloyd Boston. Though actually I’m a friend with the above qualifications as well as a slight obsession with one of the most inclusive of the body-type advisors, Mr Bradley “The Science of Sexy” Bayou.
Though sadly I lack access to the aforementioned cable TV makeover shows, I’ve gleaned enough from the internet to know we needed to work as a team. I would ask incisive answers, she would supply heartfelt answers. So I jumped in:
Q: How would you describe your current shopping strategy and your wardrobe management system?”
A: “PLAN TO FAIL.”
Okay, scratch the heartfelt.
When I arrived, she’d thankfully sorted out her definite donate-or-dump items. Hours later, with the “maybes” assessed and recategorized, one thing was clear: we were seeing the price one paid for living an E Fashion Emergency lifestyle, and that price was imminent bare-assedness.
We both knew that unless she started shopping–preferably in a purposeful manner–she’d need to nab her curtains and some duct tape and channel a certain literary heroine. Or any number of reality TV contestants.
Next: Part 2 of Ringside at Fizz’s Genie/Bottle bust-out, aka closet autopsying R us
Like many others families, the Vix Household has had QUITE a year. And by “quite” I mean way, way too many big tricks overshadowing delicious treats. In the spirit of the holiday and the proverbial picture/1000 word we’re talking:
The typical, torrential rains we’ve had the last month have helped convince my semi-reluctant daytripper love that hello, I WAS RIGHT about making hay–ok, lollygagging–while the sun shines.
As two of my favorite PNW spots are Astoria and Hood River, away we went on separate weekends. I’m not the Oregon Tourist Bureau so I won’t extoll each area’s many virtues, but I will say Astoria’s nicknamed “Little San Francisco” for a reason and Hood River makes windsurfers from around the world cry with joy.
[Though more importantly from my perspective, Hood River is one of the country's best wine- and fruit-producing regions. Obligatory add-on: Beer, too.]
Both towns are hanging in there in spite of recession woes, and it was great to see new hospitals and playgrounds and community organizations in the mix. But along with infrastructural goodness, I saw people milling around farmer’s markets and ordering a morsel or two in cafés and doing the best they could to keep local businesses alive without going under themselves.
And I admit, the progress and activity made me a little misty-eyed. For a thousand tiny reasons that build upon each other until they create a reason that’s so simple, strong, and pure that it becomes an antidote to all the bad news, all the sad news, all the news that’s not fit to print but is out there anyway.
…I’d love more Big Joy in life right now, but I think the eyedropper method of finding and bringing happiness is worth exploring…
(top to bottom: Hood River clock’s geometric delights; HR’s Full Sail Brewery brings industrial chic to the historic town; HR climbers get a helping hand; an open-weave sweater meets a few of HR’s showy leavesHR’s newish outdoor playzone has postcard views; clouds capture Astoria Column; Astoria’s Columbia River sentries)
In an earlier post, I discussed how wearing prison stripes during my formative years left me with a stripe fetish and how I happily boosted my current wardrobe of aging neutrals by swathing my torso in a striped wall treatment. A wall treatment/sweater that I’m calling “patterned” even though that descriptor is not shared by all.
Between the lack of color and the lack of pattern in my increasingly decrepit fall/winter wardrobe, I knew my clothing and I were headed down a non-exotically-colored dirt road to Dullsville. And that my path would not be altered by choosing textured neutrals, no matter how much a black velvet blazer might TRY to convince me it held the answer to my plain-Jane fabric problems.
But with no room for budgetary mistakes, how to choose the soft goods equivalent of the Yellow Brick Road? How to pick a statement-y sweater and not end up with That Print, the purchase that sits in one’s drawer or closet and makes one wince whenever it peeks out?
Slowly or boldly, or slowly then boldly. But preferably armed with a bit of knowledge from Bridgette Raes or Imogen Lamport’s blog.
Education on visual matters, aside, though, I think love plays a strong role in pattern-choosing. I maintain that one must fall for a print (or stripe, okay?) from across the proverbial crowded room. In the tiny section of my heart that beats to a romantically-inclined drum, I believe one must long to take a pattern home and immediately introduce it to members of one’s preferred wardrobe items, be they pants or skirts or jackets or dresses. [Or, if one's a clothing polywollydoodler, all of the above.]
But that’s just my .02. I eased into things with ole Stripey, because Stripey was my type.
YES I HAVE A TYPE
Others gravitate towards certain colors or scales in prints, and while I judge that to be a MARVELOUS starting place, I’m usually impervious to such sensory cues. Now I tend to be all Artemis the Unconquerable around patterns in general, true, but ever since the fabric that ended up as my 40th birthday dress (aka The Dress of 1000 Nipples) something’s happened.
So I suppose that more or less explains how I catapulted into desire for this VERY exuberant pattern when I encountered it as a wrap dress:
Unfortunately, standard wrap dresses create a block-with-a-belt look on me. And anyway I needed a sweater-y thing more than a dress. Sure, the shop had a few yards of leftover fabric, and I could see if the customizing queens could make me something to serve as my Fall/Winter Wardrobe Update #2.
But would I be exchanging cash for plaintive questions on the drive home?
To test my adoration, I took some time to ponder how a creature made from the above might fit into my closet. I looked at my sea of browns and my dark denim, and I tried to visualize myself wearing something that said HEY I’M OVER HERE! IN THE ROSY PINK! YA CAN’T MISS ME!
Such thoughts were a bit nerve-wracking, but then again I had managed to wear the aforementioned Dress of 1000 Nipples quite a few times without dying from pattern/color overdose. Hmmmmmm.
And then again redux I had been thinking that a variation or knockoff of the DKNY Cosy Sweater could be nice. Especially as I never got to buy any spendy Multiples (Units) as a middle-schooler, which has apparently left me with loads of curiosity about wearing tube tops as skirts and so on.
So I took the plunge, then had to figure out what to do with the damn thing:
No, I can’t do as many tricks with my Missoni PseudoCozy* as the DKNY Cozy converts can do with theirs. Partially because mine’s pretty loosely based on the original recipe cozy, and partially because I’m just not that limber. But I can (quickly) style it enough ways to soothe my inner, Multiples-deprived child.
And really, sometimes that’s all a closet needs: something with enough cheesiness to earn a smile, enough practicality to suit, and enough oomph to make a difference.
* Unlike Stripey’s origins as a pillow drape, I think my demi-sheer Missoni beauty was officially turned into spendy caftans and bikinis.
Luckily for my budget I lack the shoe fetish gene. And aside from jewelry I am not a big accessories person. So it’s a bit odd that I have such a perplexing amount of affection for the couple of little run-around-town purses I have. I spent most of last spring and summer glued to my violently orange bag:
Hey, carrying this has made it super-easy for people to spot me!
But now that Halloween is near, I feel compelled to swap my Love Canal Pumpkin purse for this wacky wallet-carrier:
I like my purses the way I like my men: old and ropey. I kid, I kid...I judge all on a case-by-case basis.
How much do I wish I could blow MY lid like this?
Speaking from a purely objective, form-based perspective, the hatbox influence makes my bag cuter than any bug in a rug ever thought of being. True, the lid edge has a small crack and a few dings; overall, however, it’s in much better shape than I am.
In fact, when I was getting my most recent pair of emergency glasses–the ones I rarely wear because I only love OTHER people in glasses–the fit expert admired my bag and told me she used to deal with high-end purses. Then she told me that I should take very, very good care of my little $35 vintage find.
THANKS LADY, NO PRESSURE THERE!
In terms of function, though, my corded charmer’s major downside is that it requires me to travel light. Which, given my chronic neck and shoulder issues, is also its major upside. Because no lie, this bag is Miss Jean Brodie strict and it won’t abide a hoarder. If you try to stuff, you’ll get guff.
Despite its status as the Grass Seed Capital of the World, my hamster-on-a-wheel immune system and I spent a small chunk of the weekend in the Willamette Valley. Mr Vix agreed to join me, but not without voicing his misgivings about a) my lack of trip planning and b) his current skepticism about the value of voyages that involve “driving someplace, turning around, then driving back.”
As my lack of advance preparation left a great deal of room for spontaneous pie- and scone-ordering opportunities, however, he may have reconnected with the joy of Just Because.
If not, well, I’m happy to share some of my merriment. I can’t say I have plenty to go around, but I will say I’m not afraid to prospect for more.
…1 day trip, 0 expectations, many jolts of happiness–maybe some day I’ll grasp that the process influences the outcome…
(top to bottom: containers in Corvallis; roadway rooms beckon travelers; Salem’s Slab soaps; along Albany’s circa 1887 Flinn Block; Corvallis’ town-wide trash can design; Albany’s Pix Theater, which began life as a livery stable)
I know there are women in the 40+ range who would sooner be trashed via Twitter than wear anything other than “good jewelry.” Fortunately, though, I am not one of them. For one thing, I like vibrantly-colored necklaces you can see from at least 6 feet away, and since Liz Taylor keeps sending her castoffs to that undeserving strumpet Christie I have to Make Do.
For another, I wear way, way too many tailored neutrals and thus really enjoy getting a little play that funky music white girl with my accessories now and again.
As a means to that end, post-post-intervention I started buying (and even better receiving) necklaces with chunky, semi-precious stones. Ok YES: the type of jewelry that I’ve heard dismissed as only for Upper West Side therapists or Chico’s mannequins. Given my past wardrobe and remaining Bea Arthuresque tendencies, trust me: I’m okay with channeling Meryl Streep in Primeversus channeling Meryl as SHE channels Anna “A&W Root Beer” Wintour.
Intriguingly, however, the doodad that’s my #1 Guaranteed Compliment-Getter since I bought it last spring is this plastic dahlia:
And that just cracks me up. I mean my prickly pink delight isn’t even FANCY vintage plastic like Lucite or Bakelite, nor can I squirt water from its center.
Despite its limitations, however, I’ve had this hunk of apparently-fantastic plastic cooed over when sporting it with suit jackets, sweaters, and Ts. Surely it must have something to do with the resemblance to vintage bathing caps?
Or maybe it’s a collective, subconscious love of The Graduate?
Since I hate umbrellas and feel like a horse when I wear a hood, perhaps I need to take a cue from my darling dahlia and pizzazzify my rainwear. There are enough retro-style caps here and here to bedeck the masses, so I’ve got time to mull over my options. Plastic flowers, on the other hand, don’t just grow on trees.
Lackadaisical as I am, as a blogger I do strive for a nano-sized measure of quality control. Immediately after I post, I log out of Flickr and WordPress to doublecheck that everything I want to show SHOWS. Because who the hell wants to look at a bunch of broken links, right?
But for some reason, Flickr SEEMINGLY randomly-and-without-user-error has a need to turn some of my photo permissions private. Then change the image ID/url of those photos. Which in laywoman’s terms means: BROKEN UNPRETTY POSTS.
I’ll email support to make sure it’s not on my end; I mean hey, I try not to mix editing and crack but who’s to say I’m not a multi-tasker? Right now, though, I’m flashing on the way my old boss’ father-in-law, a Louisiana native, once summed up his relationship with a colleague: “I wouldn’t trust that guy in a shithouse with a muzzle.”
Despite being a recovering pattern-a-phobic, I have always had a major stripe fetish. Be they vertical or horizontal, stripes make me happy to be alive. In fact, about the only thing my distressing junior high years had going for them was a gym uniform reminiscent of this look:
So technically I should find it comforting that the creative team at Levi’s Vintage Clothing shares my prison stripe love. They’re aping mug shots in some of their ads, I’ve got a hallway with mug shots…they’ve produced a line that incorporates new notions about which kind of stripes flatter a woman’s body, I’m sorely tempted to buy said items.
We should all be in one happy fan club, and yet I’m still not sure if I should be doing a Goooooooo GW Junior High alum cheer right now or hypocritically tsk-tsking their rather tasteless Fall/Winter design direction:
Levi's Vintage: "Inside/Out" campaign for Fall/Winter 09
And it’s not as if skinny stripes come with fewer ethical conundrums.
Sure, Breton stripes, originally modeled by oodles of French sailors, seem drama-free compared to their prison-yard siblings. But the look’s most famous fans include Hemingway, Picasso, and Bardot–hot messes, the lot of ‘em. I mean who wants to risk channeling THEM when wearing a jaunty striped top?
So thank god there’s Gene Kelly. And no, he wasn’t expressing his personal style when he donned his Breton: he was in costume. I don’t care. In fact, I almost don’t NOTICE he’s wearing stripes given that the film’s costume designer popped him into lusciously tight white trousers. [Mr Kelly humbly labeled his various Anchors Aweigh ensembles among "the greatest dance outfits ever conceived," and I can't say I feel much inclined to argue.]
Physique-enhancing qualities aside, his striped top SELLS The Worry Song. With lyrics like the below, there’s a reason his dress blues had to go AWOL:
if you worry / if you worry / if you bother your head
if won’t help you / it won’t help you / it will hurt you instead
grouchers, groaners, cranks, and moaners / they’re so unfair
if you can’t be gay and merry / lock yourself in solitary”
I can’t explain my lapse, but now that the first of my Non-Extended Dance Version Fall/Winter Closet Updates has arrived I am be-striped once more. Assuming one is broad-minded about what constitutes a stripe, anyway.
In addition to choosing some horizontal goodness that incorporates intriguing texture and a bit of sheen, I’ve gone decidedly technicolor:
Yes, it was love at first sight for me and this Missoni space dye fabric when I spotted it at a local shop; I knew I had to have a sweater made from it. [About the only way I'll own anything connected to Missoni.]
I had no doubt that Stripey’s brazen colors would play nicely with my increasingly-decrepit, ho-hum browns and denims and deep dark purples (and my hot pink tweed, should I be willing to Go There). See?
In fact, I was admiring all the colors in it when Mr Vix said:
It’s nice, but it kind of reminds me of that upholstery sample I liked and you vetoed as ‘too rug-like.’”
WELL I NEVER
O WAIT
Missoni Home 2007
You know what? I don’t care if my bosom is bedecked in a wall treatment. Because the second I put on those stripes, I’m humming The Worry Song. I’m thinking maybe I’ll try a few dozen fouettés en tournant. I’m psychotically optimistic I’d make a great sailor. Because with stripes, just about anything seems possible.
Problem is, in accepting the award one is supposed to fulfill various requirements. Requirements I will, depending on how lax one’s point of view is, either bend or ignore. That probably disqualifies me from receiving future awards of this type, huh?
I swear I considered recusing myself from sticking ole Honest Scrap on this vehicle, but I find the icon graphically-pleasing and kind of enjoy seeing it here.
Poor Struggler, choosing a lame and oppositionally-defiant duck as an awardee!
10 Honest Things About Myself (in Addition to What’s Above):
1. I grew up on murder mysteries and 70s-era novels about suburban infidelity. In retrospect, 5th grade may have been a little young to start reading the latter.
2. Approximately twice a year, I’m a morning person.
3. I’m rarely an early adopter…and after 10+ years of online forums, I haven’t really transitioned into being a blog reader. Partially because my old computer crashed when I visited all the pretty, image-heavy ones. But I’m getting there.
4. I live in a modest 1905 fixer, and after years of fixing–or avoiding fixing–I’m burnt out on decor and yard stuff. Which is bad because there’s a LOT more to do!
[Ironically, We Now Interrupt This Post so that I can go stand on the roof and hold the Silent Paint Remover, which enables Mr Vix's window-scraping.]
~ returning ~
5. See #3 and #4 above, then check out the decor-and-more-related blogs of 3 very talented women I have “known” for years via online forums:
(I’m probably missing a few bloggers from this group that I actually mean to include, but hopefully they’ll let me know!)
6. I find Facebook completely overwhelming and tend to avoid it. Also I think the interface is uglier than a tarantula’s butt. YEAH I SAID IT
7. Per my profile, I am getting more shallow as I age, not less shallow.
8. I can neither whistle nor blow bubbles with gum; this horrifies my grandmother. [Who tried and failed to teach me how to do both.] By the way, I’m sorely tempted to add a VULGAR postscript to this but won’t.
9. I have a “thing” about tagging people for stuff and can’t do it. Yes, I know it’s crazy and a tagee probably wouldn’t think I was imposing. But. Anyway: think about visiting Struggler and bloggers above. And the ones on my sidebar. Especially Bingo, since she is on hiatus BUT SHOULDN’T BE.
10. Related to #9: Lists like these paralyze me and I can never think of a damn thing to say that’s remotely interesting. For an admitted narcissist, that’s a real heartstring-puller.
As I hit the age where people stop automatically using “untimely demise” to describe one’s death, I’m still working on getting a Venn diagram where “something at which I excel” overlaps with “something about which I feel passionate” and creates a ménage à trois with “something financially feasible.”
Because while I’ve had jobs I liked well enough and I’ve had jobs that made moonshine seem like an appealing breakfast treat, I’ve never actually been in love with a profession.
I’M NOT A FLITTERBEGIBBIT, I’M JUST DRAWN THAT WAY
So I exhale green-tinged sighs when I meet people who have always known PRECISELY what they wanted to do for a living. Though potentially a frying pan/fire situation, I immediately want to exchange souls with them. And–lest I be accused of age discrimination–I’m also ready to swap with anyone who discovered his or her calling later in life.
Clearly I’d be better off if I were the type of person who could cheat on a ho-hum job with exciting, fulfilling hobbies. Then I wouldn’t need to be in love with what I do for hours and hours of my day, dammit. But as Mr Vix likes to remind me when I’m in the throes of existential despair:
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
While I look for my niche, I’ll continue to be intrigued by where people work, how they work, and why they work. And to be selectively fascinated by what their labors produce. Because sometimes we make our own destiny, and sometimes our destiny just manifests.
…it’s a big world out there, and each corner seems full of ways to create, repair, maintain, and evolve…
(clockwise from left: Torcello’s wild abandon holds traces of its 20,000 former inhabitants; an upper terrace at Fortuny’s palazzo/studio-turned-museum (see an official shot of Fortuny’s library); contemplation during cobblestone repair; a Missoni colorway holds echoes of Italy; workers pass a former monastery; family and fishing boats rest while laundry dries)
Unlike the ice cream truck that’s currently bombarding my neighborhood with Christmas tunes, our local U-pick farms are keeping it seasonal.
Since yesterday’s weather was spectacular and as I am one of those annoying city dwellers who finds rural areas super-charming, Mr Vix and I headed off to see what was blooming and ripening around us.
Along with potatoes and more colorful produce, there were dahlias and zinnias a-plenty. And who can resist a stack of empty buckets and a pile of garden shears?
…sadly, despite my annual pledge to buy lots more local food (and eat less chicken) I have a long way to go…
(top to bottom: PNW pumpkins; fall’s zinnias and dahlias await harvesting; roosters and chickens roam their farm; U-pick’d flowers brighten the Vix Household’s dining room)
I woke up one day last winter and realized that, apart from a short family-based trip, I hadn’t left the U.S. in 20 years. I’m still not sure how I let that happen; granted, I have a tendency to sleepwalk through my life when I’m not making fairly substantial changes but REALLY.
While financially it was not a great time for me to travel farther than the corner market, I was determined to celebrate my 40th by going somewhere I’d always wanted to see, someplace crumbling and splendid, bustling and languid, illusory and workaday.
Someplace as contradictory as I was feeling.
So I started making plans, and once Mr Vix got on board, we even decided to squeeze in a little second-city stop-off on the way home. Though of course I would have loved to roam even longer.
…my trip made me as happy as a raisin in a rum cake, and today’s a day I need to revisit the smaller moments that made me smile…
(top to bottom: Mr Vix wandering in Venice; Amsterdam carnival vendor; a midnight vap rider brightens the Venetian scene; Amsterdam window display; strutting it Amsterdam style; old meets new on an Amsterdam canal bank; a central city carnival flashes against Amsterdam’s grey sky; Murano factory sign; orange bag huddle on the Riva degli Schiavoni; memento from G. Nason’s studio)
Some ace procrastinators make lists, and some don’t.
If something is tedious + highly forgettable + very important, I will reluctantly find an old envelope and a pen and scrawl a reminder. Most of the time, though, I just keep loose track of what I’m trying to blow off. That way when I need a quick hit of martyrdom I have any number of chores from which to pick, but not so many that I shock my system into paralysis.
Since I have a relatively small wardrobe and wear most of my clothes throughout the year, this was SUPPOSED to be much better than a chore–that’s why I chose it, for godsakes. I envisioned a fun exercise in creativity, a “Hey, I should really think about wearing these new color combinations or about pairing X with Y this year” lark. Why, I was feeling so arty I could practically smell the macrame!
After separating out my colored items from my larger bank of neutrals, though, I faced some hard truths.
Things I grossly overestimated: The amount of non-black, -brown or -grey in my closet. And I even included the sleeveless stuff!
Things I grossly underestimated: The amount of duct tape holding up my hems; the amount of sweater de-pilling that needs to be done.
Hmmmmm...I could have sworn I had a lot more color in my fall-winter clothing these days...but this is it so far
And really, would a bit more texture and pattern kill me?
Apparently my colored necklaces and MacGyver’d hems have deceived me into thinking I have this happy-go-lucky, bandbox fresh wardrobe. But with my eyes free from scales, I’m beyond glad that:
I picked up some Stitch Witchery when out getting high-density foam (don’t ask)
the few clothes I’m getting this season have a LOT of color and pattern…for me, anyway!
While I wait for the fun new stuff I guess I have to get on the whole boring maintenance thing. No way in hell I’m wasting my 4-bladed razors on my scruffy knits, though. No way in hell.
* Barring a few no-frills, long-sleeved, BLUE T shirts. Because as they get worn more for sleeping than for interacting with the world around me, it would have been cheating.
UPDATE: RECENT TONAL TRIUMPHS
Fall/Winter additions may be limited, but they are messing with my closet’s set point….
As my part of the world is fairly temperate, my closet skews very multi-season/transitional. When it’s colder I layer up; when it’s hotter, I channel my inner burlesquer. Naturally, I also have a small stash of items weighty and frothy for if you prick me do I not bleed? temperatures.
Depressingly, my warm-weather coterie has a tendency to spend June and July hanging in the closet with this total Corduroy the Teddy Bear vibe while we Pacific Northwesterners wait for summer to actually arrive. Not that I MIND God’s tears washing over me when I’m supposed to be lounging outside with gelato or a fruity cocktail or something FUN. Not at all, nope, I couldn’t care less.
Given the atmospheric reality in which I live, I end up with a lot of lightweight knit tops and mid-weight bottoms. All of which get worn over and over and oh-my-freaking-god-die-already over during the year. And now that the “year” is really more like the “year x 4,” I am seeing the sad result of my post-intervention decision to spend more per item and have a lot less to wear.
RESULT: Personal and global economic apocalypses notwithstanding, I am pretty damn sick off oh, 80% of my clothing. And right now I don’t care that my buying method gives me a highly functional, very flexible system that may in fact rival that of Garanimals, where
each of the distinct animal lines consists of mix and match separates, whose color and style coordinate with any piece within that same animal line.”
My process isn’t going to change significantly in the near future, though. Which means that technically I have nothing to lose by checking out Pantone’s color proclamations for fashion when I’m browsing their reports for industrial and graphic and interior design. Because if I decide to freshen up my closet with a new long-sleeved T shirt or scarf, it makes perfect sense to choose a sizzling new shade that works with my latest choice in tic tacs or rearview window dice.
However.
I write the following with great trepidation, because Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, also calls the PNW home. Thus she could either beat me up without having to grossly rearrange her schedule OR she could run into me at the supermarket and feel mysteriously compelled to offer me my Yes, Seriously #1 Dream Job–making up color names–until she she sensed my Corbeau-colored aura and felt equally compelled to rescind aforementioned offer.
HOWEVER, doesn’t the Pantone reportfor Fall 2009…
The Pantone Color Report for Fall 2009 really wants to say: In every life we have some trouble / When you worry you make it double / Don't worry, be happy
look an awful lot like their prior fall color reports?
Granted, their Fall 2008 choices had some friskiness with the blue and green...
...while their Fall 2007 forecast got kicky with that jadeite and purplish-pink...
...and credit where due for swerving toward the pale Calvin Klein-y neutrals in Fall 2006.
But given the shades in Fall 2005, no wonder I'm having déjà vu in '09!
Now one doesn’t need to be all that sensitive to color to note that OBVIOUSLY, the shades chosen to accessorize our fall/winter lives have year-to-year variations. But I think it’s a stretch to call the bulk of them significant deviations. For the most part, a Pantone Fall = Red. Bright Purple. Midnight Blue. Putty. Honey or Mustard. Terracotta, Pumpkin, or Caramel. Plus the revolving-door colors.
Surveying the clothes that have to get me through another fall, I spy with my semi-dispirited eye red, bright purple, and midnight blue. As most people don’t wander around with a holstered Pantone guide to make sure strangers are wearing the EXACT shade of an “in” color, I guess I’ve got a toe in the trend–even if most of the items in question will be layered beneath black, dark brown, and grey.
And really, it’s not as if surrounding myself with mainstream colors holds much of a thrill for me these days. I’m busy dreaming of the ineffable; I’m preoccupied by a shadowy closet filled with Parisian Embrace and Húsavík Plume and Hollyford Trek. But right now I can’t go too far from what I know and what I have. Looks like my forecast entails another season cozied up with good ole American Beauty (#19-1759), and I’ll just have to make the best of it.
We’ve actually had quite a few bolters in my family, though most died before I came along. Disappointingly, no one appears to have high-tailed it due to scandal. Leaving home in hopes of finding perspective or power is a univeral tradition, but considering how much my family talks there’s a dearth of narratives about the wanderers. Who looked at expectations and felt they could tell the end of their story before it started? Who looked at the furrows, stared at the plow, and realized they needed to take off running?
Other than my grandmother, that is.
Her life story may have gained in complexity over the years, but once she was just a girl who ran North at 17, a girl determined to find an identity that had little to do with the one she was leaving behind.
As a pre-teen, I was fascinated by her past behavior. No doubt she was a fun grandmother–and a young grandmother–but she wasn’t particularly spontaneous; like all the other women who floated in and out of my life, she was firmly embedded in her domestic and workplace duties. Her life was full of daily routines, her escapism seemingly limited to cigarettes and romance novels. During visits I’d eavesdrop on the grownup chatter about jobs and kids and money and remind myself, “Once she just up and LEFT everything she knew!”
Sure, both of my parents had moved away from their hometowns. Somehow, though, it wasn’t the same. They had boring middle-class reasons for leaving: college, jobs. Structure awaited them. The unknown called to her.
Being smart and vivacious in wartime America meant she had more than a few opportunities for adventure. Hers never strayed from the civilian variety–unless wholesome frolics with men in uniform count. And among all the soldiers and squids milling about, she managed to fall for a Yankee. Not a fairy-tale Yankee with old money and a penthouse on the upper East Side, either; just a good-looking, good-natured guy with modest prospects and ambitions.
Marrying him meant she ended up further north. Whatever regrets she may have about her life with my grandfather and her life without him, she seemingly has few regrets about the location: after 7 decades her siblings have yet to entice her back for anything more than fleeting visits.
Of course vestiges of her Deep South past loiter: there’s the accent that grows stronger after a little bourbon, the backlog of magazines which celebrate all things (genteelly) Confederate, the generous hospitality visitors receive no matter how brief the stay.
But she’s transplanted herself into a different life, a place where winter means snow and she’s nobody’s daughter, nobody’s sister, nobody’s disappointment. She’s just herself, a hybrid who hasn’t always thrived, but has grown to be part of the landscape.
Having lived with more than my desired share of white, off-white, ecru, beige, ivory, cream etcetera walls, I now live in a house of Crayola colors.
My certainty about the types of colors that would work best in this house sprang from sources both intuitive (spending years in small-windowed houses filled with washed-out colors) and purchased (including 224 pages of validation from colorists-to-the-rich Donald Kaufman and Taffy Dahl). Donald, Taffy, and I agree: when a room is cursed with incredibly limited natural light, using a super-pale paint color results in grimness galore.
And really between the existing 70s-era kitchen and bathrooms I’d say we had enough grimness already:
SCARY! Vix Household bath pre-reno
Rather tediously, however, Mr Vix entered our relationship with a fondness for white, off-white, ecru etcetera walls–and/or an apprehension about co-existing with colors outside of that range. When we first moved in together, all I wanted was to get my paws on a roller loaded with cinnamon paint and all he wanted was Not That.
While our first year in the house included many, many color-related negotiations, I superstitiously avoided introducing the idea of one very-sensible-for-my-climate color range: yellow.
Because thanks to an 1892 tale by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I’ve spent the last 23 or so years associating said range with oppression and psychosis rather than breakfasts in cheerful diners. All because the shaky mental health of Gilman’s narrator further deteriorates when she is confined to a single room in her home and forbidden to work, a single room whose dominant color is…YELLOW.
It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw—not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper—the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad….[T]he only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.”
Virago Modern Classic's latest cover design captures the essence of the disturbing 1892 tale
With that stuck in my brain OF COURSE I ended up with a eucalyptus bedroom. However, and though it seemed like taunting fate to give me what for, I eventually caved and ended up painting my home-based office a fairly mellow shade of gold:
My reluctantly-yellow'd home office, on a grey (summer!) day
In the 6 years the walls and I have co-existed I’ve yet to go TOTALLY around the bend, so fingers crossed. Though now that the bath’s been redone in pale yellow tile, I admit I have a few twinges of worry. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that my mid-life anxiety started around the time the last bit of grout set the pattern in place. After all, I tore down the old walls myself; I know there’s absolutely nothing trapped behind them.
Or nothing that I can see, anyway….
Still life with Vix Household's bath walls + floors: After ~ a year of yellow tile, disaster has yet to strike
The PNW’s archetypal imagery often involves swathes of old-growth conifers populated with lush green ferns. Since I am easily bored and often restless and really regretting my overall lack of travel, I have a tendency to take the stereotypical scenery for granted.
Luckily, this region does have a lot of visual diversity within a relatively small radius. One can rather begrudgingly tromp around familiar territory only to end up fish-whapped by scenes that have more than a whiff of another time or place. Sometimes pretending I’m someplace I’ve never been–a small Midwestern farming community, Manhattan in the fall, the lavender fields of Provence, a Western Australian beach–makes it easier to enjoy where I am.
…imagination costs nothing but I skimp on using mine way too often…
In an odd, falling-dominoes way I discovered that a woman I liked very much died last week. Cancer.
God knows others have much richer memories of her than I do. I only knew her during a single, condensed phase of her life–a time when she was throwing monstrous amounts of time and a not-insignificant amount of money into broadening her creative capabilities.
The testimonials I’ve seen all speak to her loving, devoted ways as a wife, mother, and friend. She earned every word, no doubt. But when I met her 10 years ago, outside of her usual roles, she was just herself: a kind, deliberate person in an oft-unlikable and chaotic setting.
At the time, she’d just taken her fairly conventional life in what she thought would be a slightly different direction. The alteration wasn’t meant to disrupt the lives of her husband, children, or clients, but even a 5-degree change in course can plunge one into the rapids. And like the rest of us who’d picked the same path, away she went.
Despite paddling madly, she found she was unable to meet her own high standards. And with so many new expectations added to her pile, she couldn’t test her limits without reducing what she was able to offer others. So reduce she did (though from my perspective it sure looked like she continued to give a lot without asking for much in return).
Back then I wasn’t sure if her loved ones supported her choice to throw herself into something foreign and challenging and draining. If they didn’t, I hope they eventually understood why she risked making her life, and by extension their lives, a little less perfect and predictable. Because despite the exhaustion, she seemed to thrive. Despite being surrounded by love–because of being surrounded by love?–she wasn’t afraid to desire something more, to give herself permission to explore new ideas and old fascinations.
She was soft-spoken, humble, and in her 40s–an easy type to overlook or ignore in our particular environment. But if you were smart enough to pay attention, she’d make you think. She was a methodical pragmatist who wasn’t afraid to dream, and I’m sure many of her friends and family will remember her that way.
In an earlier post, I detailed how Ms Fizz let me weigh in on what she should wear to some of her 20th high school reunion events. Like the kickoff at the Pig-n-Poke’s stand-in.
When I read Judith Krantz’s Scruples at a very young and completely inappropriate age, I felt for poor Maggie MacGregor (née Shirley Silverstein), who was neither tall nor blonde nor leggy yet purchased clothing suited to tall leggy blondes.
Ms Fizz and I suffer from that same affliction, but we know fiscally and otherwise it makes sense to remember Maggie’s fateful lesson:
Fashion exists only to be adapted to you. The Maggie-ness of Maggie is what you should be looking for everytime you buy something. Ask yourself, ‘Am I still here or have I vanished?’”
With my pal feeling her casual reunionwear now captured the Fizz-ness of Fizz, we had one last task: doll her up for the swamp soirée. Because despite the insanity of an outdoor setting (in the South, in AUGUST), both of us felt it was a teeth in/shoes on event. Given that everyone will be very firmly in their 30s and all.
Up for evaluation was a tags-on black cotton voile dress that was quite flattering to Fizz’s stature and measurements, kind enough to her coloring, and certainly suitable for the occasion. We could find nothing wrong with its come-for-cocktails, stay-for-supper vibe. Except…even with kicky jewelry it was SAFE. And if Fizz wanted to let her inner frothiness out to play, who would be fool enough to dissuade her?
Rhetorical question answered, off we went. Since Fizz’s exhaustive search of National Names had yielded only the black dress, we focused on smaller stores. Now, I’m not saying we were CONSCIOUSLY thinking of another fictional Maggie–Ms Maggie Prescott–when we were out and about. But when a woman’s trying to “banish the black! burn the blue! and bury the beige!” she may find herself following the rest of MP’s advice:
Think pink / Think pink when you shop for summer clothes
Think pink / Think pink if you want that quelque chose“
Funny Face’s charms aside, I fought wearing pink for ages. Until I realized a $10 T shirt in the right shade(s) of pink/coral works better than Botox. So now I’m (conditionally) pro-pink, dammit. But awwwwww, who can hate on this?
this pink can HANDLE the bling!
Or this striking 50s confection?
Vintage 50s poppies for sale at CoutureAllure.com
[Aside from possibly stylist Kendall Farr, who recommends women 40+ seek out abstract and art-inspired blooms but also advises avoiding anything that looks too literally retro in print and shape. Now of course Fizz doesn't give a hoot about "style over 40" suggestions as she is in her LATE 30s. And Lily doesn't give a hoot about them despite being almost 70. But I like to think that Farr, whose books I admire, would be blinded by love for this item and deem it perfection for any age.]
In the end, Ms Fizz ended up with a descendant of the above…from the same place that made my customized dress…and lowish-key accessories:
Ms Fizz's new dress, more fabulous on her as she fills it out! (ignore the necklace)
Fizz's new earrings incorporate vintage Swarovski crystal (and flash a ton of colors)
FIzz's last purchase: pale pink patent "leg-extender" shoes
So what did it take to get Fizz to foam? An off-the-dummy garment expertly changed to work with her physique; the proper undergarments for smoothing and lifting; earrings that flirt with the past while keeping an eye on the present; and leg-extender shoes that blend with her skin tone and help contour her calves.
She’ll be a vision of succulent splendor once she hits town. May she party like it’s 1989.
![Cardiwrap: The Bangle [detail]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2622/4015558682_aca9874ac0_t.jpg "Cardiwrap: The Bangle [detail]")
